I do like Mondays (Tell me Why?)

I genuinely love Monday mornings. And I’m aware this makes me a little strange. Here’s why I do, and how I created that fabulous feeling when I wake up at the start of each week.

Great Mondays are Created not Discovered

Yes, “created”. Like most people, my love of Mondays was not natural. I never reached Garfield levels of loathing, but I was acutely aware that there was this down energy impacting 1/7th of my life. The trigger for me to deal with this was realising that with my Monday clients I was actively buying into their negativity, giving tacit support to their (and their staff’s) belief that Mondays were naturally a bad day.

I challenge you to look at some of your language patterns. Are you the sort of person who (like I used to) says things like “I’m not bad, for a Monday” or accepts things like “Mondayitis” as part of your workplace culture? It’s such a cliche and so easy to accept – don’t.

So I challenged myself to flip the coin on Mondays. Much like Pollyanna and Sunday sermons, I knew there was bound to be one thing I could find to love about Mondays – and possibly even a new Monday habit I could develop which would energise me.

Here’s What I Chose

There’s a saying I love that “the brain will solve whatever challenge you set it”, and sure enough after a few weeks I found myself with a solution. Changing my attitude to Monday came in two parts – a new energy, and a better process.

1) New Energy: I love the potential of Monday mornings. On a Monday morning I can achieve anything with my week – all of that time, five whole days, stretching out in front of me brimming with possibility. When I hop out of bed on a Monday, I jump straight into that feeling – opportunity, potential, and my own personal power. It’s an amazing place to spend some time.

(Take 5 seconds now and spend some time there appreciating how much you could achieve this week.)

2) Better Process: And the habit I developed allows me to spend time there. My Monday morning routine is to put aside 1-3 hours to review the week ahead, and to actually plan what I want to create with all of that time and potential. Over a coffee at my favourite cafe (where I am writing this blog post now), I have the luxury of embracing all of my power.

And it worked

The remarkable thing about hacking my emotions like this is that it totally worked. In the space of about a month, 4 Monday morning power coffees, I flipped from ‘meh’ to ‘marvellous’. And even when I get busy, and miss my Monday coffee, the feeling still remains.

Now instead of easing myself into the week, and not really achieving anything until Tuesday, I hit Monday ready to go. And my Monday clients feel it too, which reinforces the energy I feel.

Not all Beer and Skittles

There was a flipside, if you can believe it? I started to feel lousy on a Friday afternoon! (All those things I didn’t achieve. All that time wasted. All that power set aside. Yes, seriously!)

Thankfully, improving Friday afternoons was pretty easy – that’s now where I schedule sales meetings with prospects who like beer.

So do you like beer? Drop me an email and we’ll find a Friday afternoon to catch up soon.